Black History Month 2024: Highlighting the Work of Nine Poets
In honour of Black History Month, Poetry Matters wishes to highlight the work of nine Black poets based in, or with ties to, Tio’tia:ke/Montreal. Drawn from the suggestions of poets, students, faculty, and booksellers with connections to Poetry Matters, this list collects some of the writers currently inspiring our communities:
Montreal-based poet and translator D. M. Bradford is the author of Dream of No One but Myself (2021) and Bottom Rail on Top (2023). Dream of No One but Myself not only won the A.M. Klein poetry prize, but was also longlisted for many other prizes including the Governor General’s Literary Award. Bradford has also published an award-winning translation of Nicholas Dawson’s House Within a House (2023).
Tawhida Tanya Evanson’s published poetry collections include Bothism (2017) and Nouveau Griot (2018). A multilingual performer, producer, and Ashiq, Evanson has also published the novel Book of Wings (2021) which won the 2022 CAM/Blue Metropolis New Contributions Prize, and which she translated herself in 2023. She works in Montreal where she was born, and performs her poetry and music internationally.
Trinidadian poet, artist, and McGill student Joel Harris was recently shortlisted for Into the Void’s 2020 Poetry Prize. Harris’ work has appeared in publications such as The Heavy Feather Review, PRISM, the Berkely Poetry Review, and Anthropocene. He has also contributed to two books, The Alpha Barrier of North South Dialogue and The Twilight of America's Omnipresence.
Kaie Kellough is a Montreal-Based poet, novelist, and sound performer from Western Canada. His books include the novel Accordéon (2016), a collection of poetry titled Magnetic Equator (2019), and the collection of short fiction Dominoes at the Crossroads (2020). Amongst his other accomplishments, Kellough has won the Griffin Poetry Prize and the QWF Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction. He is one of this year’s Montreal Poetry Prize jurors.
Kama La Mackarel is a multilingual Mauritian-Canadian writer, visual artist, performer, educator and literary translator. They now live in Montreal where they have developed a multi-disciplinary and community based arts practice, creating, curating, and hosting queer performance-based events such as GENDER B(L)ENDER: queer open stage (2013-18) and The Self-Love Cabaret: l’amour se conjugue à la première personne (2012-22). La Mackarel’s award-winning book ZOM-FAM (2020) was named a CBC Best Poetry Book, and a Globe and Mail Best Debut.
Danielle Legros Georges, who is one of this year’s Montreal Poetry Prize jurors, is a professor of Creative Writing at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as well as a an award-winning writer and translator. Her published work includes Maroon (2001), Letters from Congo (2017), The Dear Remote Nearness of You (2016), and several poems published on poets.org, and in The Harvard Review.
A Professor of English and Theatre Studies at Guelph University, Canisia Lubrin is also a poet, editor, and writer. Her many accolades include the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Poetry and the overall Literature prize, the Griffin Poetry Prize, and the Derek Walcott Prize. Lubrin’s works include Voodoo Hypnothesis (2017), The Dyzgraphxst (2020), and Code Noir (2023). On March 27th, she will be speaking at Concordia University, along with writer and Professor Christina Sharpe, as part of the Writers Read Series.
Born in Toronto, storyteller, performer, and poet Faith Paré now lives and works in Montreal. Paré has published several poems, essays, reviews, and interviews, in publications such as Metatron Press, The Capilano Review, and Arc Poetry Magazine. Amongst her other accomplishments, she was awarded the Irving Layton Award in Poetry in 2020, and received the Quebec Writer’s Federation’s inaugural Mairuth Sarsfield Mentorship for Underrepresented Writers.
Nigel H. Thomas is an academic, poet, and novelist. He is the author of two collections of poems Moving through Darkness (1999), and The Voyage (2021), as well as six novels, three collections of short stories, and two academic books. Thomas holds several awards including the 2020 Martin Luther King Junior Achievement Award, the 2021 Quebec Writers' Association Judy Mappin Community Award, and the 2022 Canada Council for the Arts John Molson Prize for the Arts. Thomas was born in St. Vincent, and now lives in Montreal.
Many thanks to all those whose thoughtful contributions of experience and expertise went into the development of this list. Your engagement is invaluable.